Something I have been thinking about getting for a while now was the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars Legion boxed core set. So I was well pleased to get it for Christmas.
There are thirty-three easily assembled figures in the boxed set including Darth Vader.
Once a heroic Jedi Knight, Darth Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force, became a Sith Lord, and led the Empire’s eradication of the Jedi Order. He remained in service of the Emperor for decades, enforcing his Master’s will and seeking to crush the fledgling Rebel Alliance. But there was still good in him…
Darth Vader has three components, his body, arm and light sabre and his head with a cape.
The model goes together very easily.
Due the nature of the plastic used for the model the light sabre is a little bendy and doesn’t sit straight. I am wondering if I should replace it with some plastic (or even metal) rod.
I used superglue to stick the model together and to it’s base.
So it was probably a no brainer to get one of these for my French partisan band.
The Char B1 was a specialised break-through vehicle, originally conceived as a self-propelled gun with a 75 mm howitzer in the hull; later a 47 mm gun in a turret was added, to allow it to function also as a Char de Bataille, a “battle tank” fighting enemy armour, equipping the armoured divisions of the Infantry Arm.
Among the most powerfully armed and armoured tanks of its day, the type was very effective in direct confrontations with German armour in 1940 during the Battle of France, but slow speed and high fuel consumption made it ill-adapted to the war of movement then being fought. After the defeat of France, captured Char B1 (bis) would be used by Germany, with some rebuilt as flamethrowers, Munitionspanzer, or mechanised artillery.
What I had discovered in my research about the FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur) was that they had re-captured many of the German Char B1s and used them against the Germans.
The model is a plastic kit and comes in a nice box complete with decals and instructions.
There are two sprues in the box.
The kit does go together relatively easily.
I had a few issues when putting the frontal weapon into place and where the top hull joins the bottom hull.
There are quite a few options when it comes to putting it together, if you want an original vanilla French Char B1, a captured German version or, as I am doing a liberated version for use in 1944 and 1945.
The Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy is a type of Ork attack vehicle. The first Rukkatrukk Squigbuggies were invented by enterprising Snakebites in order to feed Speed Freeks on the move. Mobile pens full of edible squigs, the vehicles kept pace with the warband’s Warbikers, buggies and Trukks while their grinning crews hawked their wares at the tops of their lungs.
As with most models these days, the kit comes in an A4 sized box.
Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy Box
The entire model comes on a single sprue.
The model goes together quite easily. The instructions are very clear and easy to follow.
However unlike earlier GW models there is less room for variations on the model, so you are quite constrained on how the model is put together.
This means that what you see on the box is what you are going to get. The squigs for example are moulded into the truck, so if you wanted to use the truck as a basis for a different kind of Ork vehicle then you will need to do some serious conversion work to make that work. A lot of the “weaponry” is integrated into the body parts, so you can’t easily omit them from the construction process.
The Vosper 73 foot motor torpedo boat was a mid-twentieth century British motor torpedo boat designed by Vospers that served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War
The plastic sprue that came with Wargames Illustrated has two Vosper MTBs, one type I and one type II.
I found this graphic useful in putting these models together.
As with any small plastic model kit, I found these quite fiddly to put together.
Vosper MTB type IVosper MTB type II
Kriegsmarine S-Boats
E-boat was the Western Allies’ designation for the fast attack craft (German: Schnellboot, or S-Boot, meaning “fast boat”) of the Kriegsmarine during World War II. The most popular, the S-100 class, were very seaworthy, heavily armed and capable of sustaining 43.5 knots.
The plastic sprue that came with Wargames Illustrated has two S-Boats, an S-100 and an S-38.
I found this graphic useful in putting these models together.
As with the Vosper MTBs, I found these quite fiddly to put together.
Kyle Reese was a Resistance soldier in the post-apocalypse future, where most of humanity had already been wiped out in a deadly nuclear Third World War, sparked off by an artificial intelligence entity known as Skynet.
Kyle Reece is a metal miniature for the Terminator Genisys Miniatures Game from Warlord Games.
This is Reese when he is fighting Skynet in the future.
This model was the first one I bought for Tally Ho! It has been stuck in a box for about twenty years.. It was originally designed and manufactured by the Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company (HLBSCo) they were small and relatively new.
The Rolls-Royce armoured car was a British armoured car developed in 1914 and used in World War I and in the early part of World War II.
This is a 1920s version of the Armoured Car. The model consists of a resin armoured hull, metal chassis, wheels, turrets and fiddly headlights. The model went together very easily, the parts were a good fit. I glued the armoured car hull to the chassis. The wheels and axels fitted very nicely into the respective holes.
I did check a few reference pictures to confirm that I had aligned the hull right and the spare wheels in the right place.
The Rolls-Royce armoured car was a British armoured car developed in 1914 and used in World War I and in the early part of World War II.
At the outbreak of World War II, 76 vehicles were in service. They were used in operations in the Western Desert, in Iraq, and in Syria. By the end of 1941, they were withdrawn from the frontline service as modern armoured car designs became available.
This model was the first one I bought for Tally Ho! It has been stuck in a box for about twenty years.
It was originally designed and manufactured by the Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company (HLBSCo) they were small and relatively new. I even remember discussing licensing the models for a commercial version of Tally Ho! However that didn’t go any further and the model went into a box.
A version of the model is still available today and the other HLBSCo models are available from Empress Miniatures. The newer version consists of more resin and less white metal.
I saw this post as I was updating some other stuff, so I thought I would add an update. Alas this never got further than the ideas stage and the kit was eventually sold on eBay a few years ago.
After thinking about Bolt Action for a while and reflecting on the rules I finally decided on which force I was going to build. My regular opponent Simon was going Italian, so I actually had quite a wide choice of potential foes, from Early War French, British Desert Rats, Anzio which would mean regular British Infantry and US forces, Russians and even Germans towards the end of the war. I did initially think about Greek, they used regular British equipment so would be quite easy to model. I did consider Late War Germans, so I could get a JagdTiger in 28mm…. but in the end I decided that I would go totally irregular and go with Partisans, so just infantry, or maybe a car or truck or two.
I have a few civilian vehicles, a Citroen Civilian 1000kg Dropside Truck.
I have been slowly painting the models, and was quite clear to myself that I wouldn’t buy any more models for this force until I had most of the existing models painted.
However…
On a recent visit to the Warlord Games Store in Nottingham I was tempted by the boxed model of the French Char B1.
The French Char B1 is one of my favourite tanks, probably as a result of making that Matchbox plastic kit of the Char B1 and the Renault FT17 when I was young.
So it was probably a no brainer to get one of these for my French partisan band.
The Char B1 was a specialised break-through vehicle, originally conceived as a self-propelled gun with a 75 mm howitzer in the hull; later a 47 mm gun in a turret was added, to allow it to function also as a Char de Bataille, a “battle tank” fighting enemy armour, equipping the armoured divisions of the Infantry Arm.
Among the most powerfully armed and armoured tanks of its day, the type was very effective in direct confrontations with German armour in 1940 during the Battle of France, but slow speed and high fuel consumption made it ill-adapted to the war of movement then being fought. After the defeat of France, captured Char B1 (bis) would be used by Germany, with some rebuilt as flamethrowers, Munitionspanzer, or mechanised artillery.
What I had discovered in my research about the FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur) was that they had re-captured many of the German Char B1s and used them against the Germans.
Captured Char B1 bis FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur) Panzerkampfwagen B-1 740(f) recaptured by Free France forces in 1944 and used in the liberation of Paris.
This B1-bis FFI Vercors of 13rd Dragons was used in La Rochelle in May 1945.
So once the model is made I have two choices about which paint scheme to use.
B1-bis captured by FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur), battle of Paris, August 1944.
B1-bis FFI Vercors of 13rd Dragons – La Rochelle, May 1945
Of course there is a slight reality issue in that by 1944 the Italians had already surrendered and changed sides.
The model is a plastic kit and comes in a nice box.
So one of my Christmas presents was an Ork Megatrakk Scrapjet. I haven’t really had a chance to paint or look at my Ork forces, but when Games Workshop announced their new plastic Ork vehicles and Speed Freeks, I really liked the look of them.
So it was nice for Christmas to receive the Megatrakk Scrapjet.
A favourite amongst Speed Freeks and grounded Flyboyz alike, Megatrakk Scrapjets provide rocket-propelled acceleration, impressive firepower and the hilarity of ramming into enemy lines at the helm of what is effectively a gigantic, thrust-driven drill. These vehicles allow former Ork pilots to revel in the dimly-remembered joy of mowing down enemies at point-blank range – a joy which, of course, often caused the Flyboy to crash in the first place. Explosions blossom amidst the enemy as rokkits and missiles collide with their targets, while Grot tail-gunners blaze away with chattering big shootas – the array of weaponry welded, bolted, riveted and lashed onto a Megatrakk Scrapjet is fearsome.
The box contains a single sprue. There is a lot of detail on the model, but there is only really one way to put this kit together. I think I like the potential for variety with Ork vehicles, but there is very little included with the kit that would allow you to make a second model that was similar to the original, but different enough to look Orkish. I don’t see Orks having factory production lines producing identical vehicles and even if that was the case, I don’t think that the similarity would survive contact with the enemy. Even the back story to the Scrapjet implies that this is a converted Ork aircraft.
The instructions are very clear and easy to follow, and the part numbering means that you can quickly put the model together.
Having put the model together the next stage was to undercoat it with a white paint undercoat.
I did consider giving the model a black undercoat, but if the main body will be either yellow or polished metal then a white undercoat will work better than a black one.
I really like the model and am looking forward to painting it.
Once it’s painted I think I might go with the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy to accompany it.
